Re-boot
I wrote a bunch of posts regarding my past employment, but said nothing about the new one. In fact, I was a bit superstitious, didn't want to jinx what was going to happen. Now it shall all be revealed! Well, long story short I will be relocating to Italy (re-boot, get it?)and working at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Ispra. That's it, cheers!
Just kidding. How does one get to, first, have the opportunity in the first place and, second, actually decide to go? For the first point I would have to say pure blind luck. I happen to have a LinkedIn profile that shows a lot of experience in the field of Microsoft .NET and so they called me, since they needed someone like that, and I turned out not to be a complete wacko (only a partial one) at the interview. The second point is actually the most complicated. Most Romanian developers of my experience are rooted, so to speak. Married, many with children and obligations, relatives and social circles, they often find it too hard or completely impossible to relocate to another country. Luckily for me, I have no children, I don't have any social circles to talk about, I will probably talk to and visit my relatives just as much from Italy as from Bucharest and I have one of the most understanding wives one could want. She stays behind, at least temporarily, to mind the fort, continue her own career and take care of the dog, while I go on to the adventure of my lifetime.
I may be exaggerating, but I will check out several experiences that I have never had before:
All in all, this is the gist of it. You can see that I am excited enough (setting the stage for future disappointment). My plane leaves Bucharest next Friday, on the , while actual work begins on the . Hopefully this will generate a deluge of technical blog posts that will compensate the lack experienced in the last two years.
Just kidding. How does one get to, first, have the opportunity in the first place and, second, actually decide to go? For the first point I would have to say pure blind luck. I happen to have a LinkedIn profile that shows a lot of experience in the field of Microsoft .NET and so they called me, since they needed someone like that, and I turned out not to be a complete wacko (only a partial one) at the interview. The second point is actually the most complicated. Most Romanian developers of my experience are rooted, so to speak. Married, many with children and obligations, relatives and social circles, they often find it too hard or completely impossible to relocate to another country. Luckily for me, I have no children, I don't have any social circles to talk about, I will probably talk to and visit my relatives just as much from Italy as from Bucharest and I have one of the most understanding wives one could want. She stays behind, at least temporarily, to mind the fort, continue her own career and take care of the dog, while I go on to the adventure of my lifetime.
I may be exaggerating, but I will check out several experiences that I have never had before:
- living alone - I know it sounds strange, but in 36 years I have never lived alone. I was either living with my parents, with my business partner or with a girlfriend or wife
- living in another country - I have worked in Italy before, a few disparate weeks, but never lived in another country for long enough to understand the local culture and experience the way locals see the world
- living in a small town - Ispra is a 5000 people enclave, so it's not even a small town, more of a village
- working for the European Commission or some other governmental organization like that - I am afraid of the bureaucracy, frankly, I hope there is some sort of separation between devs and that sort of thing
- working with actual new technologies - I thought there are some people that inflate their resumes in order to get jobs they don't really deserve, but I never imagined that most companies would misrepresent themselves to appear more attractive as a workplace. I've heard a lot about what great new project I will be working on, only to be relegated to some legacy crap that no manager wants to rewrite even when it's bankrupting their company. Oh, I really hope the JRC people didn't bullshit me about an ASP.Net MVC 4.5 web site with Web API's, AngularJS and Google Maps.
- staying separated from my wife, but not being mad at each other - not that I have ever stayed separated from her while being angry, but still. Our relationship started as a long distance one, since we were living in different cities, and only after a year we moved in together. I am curious as to how this reversal will affect us. I believe it will strengthen our bond, but there are alternative scenarios.
- working and living in a truly multicultural environment - the place will have Italian, French, German, Swiss, Romanian and who know what many other types of people. I will have the opportunity to relearn all the European languages, express myself in them, learn about other cultures from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
All in all, this is the gist of it. You can see that I am excited enough (setting the stage for future disappointment). My plane leaves Bucharest next Friday, on the , while actual work begins on the . Hopefully this will generate a deluge of technical blog posts that will compensate the lack experienced in the last two years.
Comments
Costine don't worry, I know you by 2 days only but I already understood you are very smart and you have open mind to quickly solve any task. As I already told you: problems don't exist --> only task to do :-)
Anonymous